Author(s): García-Álvarez, David ; Viana, Cláudia M. ; Gomes, Eduardo ; Marcelino, Filipe ; Caetano, Mário ; Rocha, Jorge
Date: 2023
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/155616
Origin: Repositório Institucional da UNL
Subject(s): Land Use; Land Cover; CORINE Land Cover; Time series; Backdating; Portugal; Global and Planetary Change; Earth-Surface Processes; Computers in Earth Sciences; Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law; SDG 15 - Life on Land
García-Álvarez, D., Viana, C. M., Gomes, E., Marcelino, F., Caetano, M., & Rocha, J. (2023). Dealing with the uncertainty of technical changes in the CORINE Land Cover dataset: The Portuguese approach. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 122, 1-11. [103389]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2023.103389 --- This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [Ayudas para contratos Juan de la Cierva-formación 2019 - FJC2019-040043]. The first author is also grateful to the University of Alcalá for funding his research visit at the Instituto de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território (IGOT) of the University of Lisbon, where this research was carried out. The authors are also grateful to the IGOT for funding the Open Access fee of this paper.
Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) datasets are widely used across disciplines, with many users demanding more and better information. Understanding the uncertainties and errors associated to the main LULC datasets is a required step to facilitate their correct use, as well as to identify what could be improved in the future production of these products. CORINE Land Cover is probably the most well-known and used LULC dataset in Europe, especially valuable for the rich time-series that it provides. Despite being produced through a change mapping first approach, which tries to avoid technical errors and uncertainties in the temporal analysis of LULC changes, the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service distributes status layers of CORINE (CSL), which are not valid for change analysis because of their associated errors and uncertainties. The CORINE layers of changes (CHA) remove a lot of these issues, but do not meet the needs of many users. In Portugal, the national authority in charge of producing CORINE, the DGT, has implemented a backdating approach to produce consistent CSL layers that allow change analysis with low levels of uncertainty. Throughout this paper, we evaluate the changes that can be analyzed through all available CORINE layers in Portugal: Copernicus CSL layers; the national DGT CSL layers; and CHA layers. To this end, we aim to assess what type of changes can be studied through each type of layer, their associated sources of uncertainty and the relevance and utility of the Portuguese backdating approach to produce a consistent time-series of LULC maps. The results prove how the Portuguese CORINE layers distributed by the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service contain important sources of uncertainty, which however have been removed through the national backdating methodology. This methodology can be therefore exported for the production of CORINE in other European countries.
